Blog Post #1

In the Kumashiro reading “The Problem Of Common Sense”,  Kumashiro defines common sense as “what everyone knows” (Kumashiro, p.XXIX). Kumashiro making this statement is very bold. By stating that commonsense is something that everyone knows would mean that everyone around the world would have to be raised with the same culture, beliefs, experiences, surroundings, interests, etc. Since everyone in the world is not carbon copies of each other, a statement such as “what everyone knows” (Kumashiro, p.XXIX), can not actually be true. This is why it is so important to pay attention to common sense because everyone’s common sense will be different to the next. Everyone based on their culture, beliefs, experiences, surroundings, interests, etc, different ideas or concepts would just come natural to them and be common sense to them. A personal example of this would be myself and my brother. My brother and I are very close and we were raised the same and have had similar experiences. However since myself and my brother have different interests we have different common sense. My brother has always been into sports, so many sports concepts would just be common sense to him. Whereas I only played a couple sports growing up so many sports concepts are not common sense to me. I have worked with children for many years so when a situation occurs of a child being upset it is just common sense to me of how I would deal with the situation. Whereas my brother would have no idea where to even start if a child was upset. In other words if common sense can be different in the same family then it is definitely different in each family and society. An example from the reading is how where Kumashiro was teaching it is common sense that by how you “control a classroom meant hitting” (Kumashiro, p. XXX) and how “one student even brought a big stick for Kumashiro to us if classmates got too noisy” (Kumashiro, p. XXX). Kumashiro before going to Nepal had only had an American style of teaching experience where for Kumashiro it would be common sense to never hit a child and to her common sense to manage a classroom was by “dialogue and verbal admonitions” (Kumashiro, p. XXX), whereas her students’ common sense was to be hit. This is just a couple of examples of how common sense is different to each individual. This shows that it is important to be aware of other people’s common sense so that as teachers we know how to address a student and to be patient with students for something that is common sense to one person does not mean that it will be to the student they are teaching. 

The common sense understanding of curriculum and pedagogy that I bring with me into this course is that curriculum is a set list of material and topics that are needed to be taught each year to the appropriate grade level for students to succeed in other grades. The common sense I have on pedagogy is that with the curriculum that one is given how one then teaches that curriculum. Out of the two the common sense I have is that pedagogy is more important out of the two. Curriculum is just the material one is given but how the material is taught is what really matters.

The problem of common sense (From Kumashiro. (2009). Against Common Sense: Teaching and Learning Toward Social Justice, pp. XXIX – XLI).